by tennis camps i mean moved away from home for a few years, not summer camps

Arkulari

07-16-2012, 10:14 PM

Rafa Nadal.

Johnny Groove

07-16-2012, 10:18 PM

Fed went to the academy for a few years, I know Nadal didn't, Djokovic went to Pilic for a few years.

The Old-Time GOATs, there really were not academies as we know them now.

Laver, Rosewall, many of the Aussie guys just trained with each other and Harry Hopman on the Davis Cup team.

Pancho Gonzales and Bill Tilden both basically made it on their own, and Sampras had many private lessons, but not an academy.

I think McEnroe went to Bollitieri's for a day or two before he got out of there, another self-made player.

Borg had some coaching, yes, but they were smartly reluctant not to change Borg's full slowing strokes.

Connors and Lendl were taught by their mothers.

Nowadays, a lot of players go to the academies, but only the ones with high quality, private coaches are the ones that made it. Many of the players at the academies are sheep, designed to milk the money of their parents. When the parents of the next prospective kids see all these sheep hitting balls like a factory, like an assembly line, they want their kids in there too. The academies don't care. They have a select group of players they think will make it, give them the real and give the crappy coaches to everyone else.